


Post Post-Rock

by briony8969



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bickering, Comedy, First Kiss, Fluff, I was inspired by the Dirk Gently comic a bit, M/M, One Shot, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 17:35:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15078206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briony8969/pseuds/briony8969
Summary: Dirk and Todd find themselves in and out of some closets, both literal and metaphorical. Takes place after season two when they've set up the agency.





	Post Post-Rock

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’s new office boasted lots of wood paneling, faded orangeish shag carpet, and scratched vinyl floors. Before agreeing to let the three socially awkward and bizarre tenants rent the space, their realtor had made them sign a waiver about the possibilty of lead paint on the premises. Every time Dirk walked through the door he felt a little thrill of excitement and overwhelming feelings of universal okay-ness. Whether this was one of his hunches or not was, as of yet, unclear.

“Todd.” Dirk asked, leaning back in his old, very squeaky office chair and rotating around in it haphazardly. “Do you think we ought to have had a client stop by yet?” 

“I don’t know.” Todd answered from a reclined position on the couch, where moments previously he had been taking a nap. He sat up with a little stretch and groan, legs and arms awkwardly reaching beyond the edges of the love seat. “This is my first real job.” 

Dirk bristled at Todd’s lack of self assurance. “Bell-boying is a real job! Punk banding is a real job!” Dirk reminded his assis-friend.

“First off, if part of your title is ‘boy’ that does not bode well for the seriousness of your position, and Mexican Funeral was more of a post-rock… ok, never mind.” Todd dragged himself upright, rubbing his eyes in a way that Dirk struggled against finding absolutely precious. “Yeah, I feel like, a month in, we probably should have at least ONE client like, walk in to the office.” 

“Perhaps you were right about our newspaper ad.” 

“Nobody reads newspapers anymore, Dirk.” Todd said.

The ad which Dirk chose to run in the local newspapers, much to both Farah and Todd’s dismay, included the tagline, “cases solved with arguable efficiency!” Printed alongside a large headshot of Dirk giving two thumbs up. The only business it had drummed up was one woman calling to ask if they sold essential oils. 

“I’ve got an idea.” Dirk said, standing up and reaching for his jacket. “I’m going out.” 

“Where are we going?” Todd asked, joining him almost eagerly. Compliant Todd was so pleasantly different from the stubborn skeptical Todd he’d been when they first met.

Dirk considered for a millisecond asking him to stay and mind the office, but who was he kidding, he wanted Todd to tag along.

“I’ve no idea.” Dirk said, picking up the rubber squeeze doll that was Mona off of his desk and placing her safely in his jacket pocket. Mona wouldn’t want to be left out, but she wasn’t quite comfortable meeting Todd and Farah yet. 

“Ok cool.” Todd said agreeably. 

A few moments later the two of them walked briskly down main street, passing by various chain stores, vape shops, and local eateries. Dirk scanned the people walking around them and picked a pedestrian at random. 

“See that man on the other side of the street?” Dirk whispered to Todd, trying to look as though he were casually glancing at the display of a local knitting store.

“The guy with the grey hair and the blue shirt?” Todd asked.

“Exactly. We’re going to follow him.” 

“Really? Why? Do you know him? Is he a suspect? Have we got a case?” Todd asked, glancing back again at the man. Their target was wearing a blue button-up shirt, some very well fitting jeans and a pair of fine brown leather shoes that must have cost him a few hundred bucks.

“Not at all.” Dirk said with a little shrug.

“But… like… do you have a hunch about him?” 

“Not particularly.” Dirk explained. He glanced back at the man and saw he was leaning against the side of a bodega and lighting a cigarette. Dirk gestured to Todd that they should enter the yarn store, and Todd obediently, if somewhat begrudgingly, followed him inside.

Once Dirk had a position where he could look as though he were examining various yarn skeins while keeping an eye on the man on the other side of the street he continued to explain.

“I used to do this all the time.” Dirk said. “Back when I just roamed around England waiting for cases to find me. If nothing seemed to be happening I’d just follow anybody and I’d usually stumble into something.”

“Seriously?” Todd said. “You’d just, follow a random stranger?”

“Yes Todd, as has been made abundantly clear, my life is stupid.” 

“Can I help you?” An older woman who dressed far too fashionably to be working in a yarn store wandered over. Her tone made it clear that she was not actually offering assistance, rather, she wanted them to know that she was keeping an eye on the two thirty-year old men obviously loitering in her overpriced knitting shop.

“We’re just fine, thanks!” Dirk said with one of his charming smiles. 

“Oh!” The woman glanced up and down at Dirk, his fashionable leather jacket, his slightly tight red trousers, his general demeanor, and her attitude softened. She gave a little half smile and nodded approvingly at him and Todd. “You two take your time, then. I’m right over there if you have any questions. Are you working on a particular project?”

“Oh just a…” Dirk didn’t know the first thing about knitting and glanced around the room for inspiration. Mannequin after mannequin stood on display in sweaters and cardigans of varying complexity. “A jumper. For Todd.” He gestured over to his friend, who kept glancing out the window at the man they were following in the most suspicious way imaginable. 

“Oh, that’s so SWEET!” The saleswoman overreacted in that slightly irritating way that straight women who like the concept of being an ally to gay men but don’t actually know any gay people tend to do. “Well, we’ve got some lovely Alpaca wool on those shelves across the store, some of it in very tasteful colors.” She winked at them. “Enjoy.”

As the saleswoman retreated Todd glanced at Dirk with a confused expression.

“That was… odd.” He said. “Also, what’s a jumper?”

“A jumper’s a jumper Todd, you’re wearing one right now. I think she thought you were my boyfriend.” 

“What!?” Todd hissed somewhat loudly, before a sharp expression from Dirk shut him up again. “Well thats… that’s, uh, funny, right?”

“What, that she thought two men, one of whom happens to be uniquely elegant, might be dating? I don’t think it’s exactly out of the question, Todd.”

“Well, yeah, I guess…”

“Particularly because I am gay.” Dirk said. 

Todd blinked.

~*~

Dirk Gently figured out that he was gay when he was about 8 years old. He knew that for many people, growing up within restrictively religious or heteronormative cultures, homosexuality could be a source of some stress. However, given the fact that he grew up in a government lab with some kind of bizarre (certainly not psychic) abilities, all things considered, his sexuality was probably the least upsetting aspect of his existence.

After the escape, Dirk found the gay community to be relatively welcoming. One tipsy evening in a gay bar proved to be particularly memorable, when a tipsy Dirk encountered a good-looking transgender man called Gavin and the discussion of chosen names came up.

“Fuck it, man, if you want your last name to be an adverb, then LET IT BE A GODDAMN ADVERB.” Gavin said.

“EXACTLY, thank you! It’s like, everybody wants to tell me what I am and I keep saying, no… it’s not like that… it doesn’t work that way!”

“Don’t let anybody try to put you in a box!” Gavin agreed. “DEFINITELY not the government, they want to get all up in your shit but they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.” 

“I. LITERALLY. Could not agree more, Gavin.” 

The two of them had very nearly hooked up that night, but the untimely arrival of the Rowdy 3 forced Dirk to flee the premises and miss an opportunity with what seemed Iike a very delightful and understanding person. Successful human interaction remained elusive for young Dirk, despite frequent and enthusiastic attempts at it. 

Then of course he fell in love with his (not even consistently helpful) assistant/best friend Todd Brotzman and everything all went to hell.

~*~

Todd stared at Dirk at an absolute loss for words. As a variety of stunned responses swirled around in his brain struggling for coherency, the door jingled announcing the arrival of another customer. Dirk, demonstrating the lack of subtlety which made him such an unusual detective, just straight up pointed towards the door with an expression of theatrical horror. Todd spun around to find the grey haired blue-shirted man they were supposed to be tailing walking into the store, only a few feet away from them. 

“MOVE!” Dirk whispered, and began to shove Todd towards the back of the store in a hurried and, again, almost anti-covert fashion. 

“WHY!?” Todd whispered, “He’s just some guy!” 

But Dirk didn’t pay any attention and the two of them stumbled, very close together, behind a large curtain that seemed to be partitioning the rear of the store from the front.

They found themselves in a small, poorly lit area which seemed as though it might have served as a changing room in another iteration of the store. As it was it held a few boxes of merchandise and some old broken chairs; it was clearly not a customer area.

Todd extricated himself from Dirk in a huff.

“Hold up, Dirk, you can’t just drop some kind of bombshell like that and then just go on like everything’s normal.” He snapped, keeping his voice down.

“Is fleeing into the back of a knitting shop normal to you, Todd?” Dirk asked.

“Dirk, don’t… You’re gay? When were you going to tell me?”

Dirk took a sharp intake of breath and narrowed his eyes at Todd. 

“It’s not as though I’ve hid it. Look at me.” He gestured to just, sort of, all of himself. “I mean what do I have to do Todd? Get a buzz cut and drive a Subaru and carry a large ring of keys on my belt loop?”

“I think those are… lesbian stereotypes…” Todd sputtered.

“And what, you’re a massive homophobe and now you have to quit working with me because you find my lifestyle repulsive?” Dirk asked, a hint of fear making itself present in his voice with each word.

Todd sighed in irritation.

“Of course not, it just seems like something that would have come up by now!”

“Does it matter?” Dirk asked. 

“I mean… not really.”

Dirk made a helpless, irritated gesture at Todd.

“Well, I’m gay. If I’m the first gay person you’ve ever met in the wild I’ll explain to you that most of us don’t have magical powers, that’s sort of a ‘me’ specific thing.” 

Dirk turned and swung open a door at the rear of the storage spacing, planning on making a dramatic exit and running back around to the front of the store. He had every intention of continuing to follow the man he’d picked out in the street. 

But the door didn’t lead outdoors. Instead, as Dirk finished his sentence, he swung the door open to a room where about 5 elderly women, between 65 and 80, dressed in floral blouses and stretchy trousers, all sat around a large table. Some of them were unwinding large yarn skeins from a wooden shipment crate and revealing plastic wrapped bricks of white powder, which some other ladies poured into smaller baggies. The final step seemed to be rolling the smaller baggies back into spherical balls of yarn. At Dirk and Todd’s surprise entrance, each lady looked up, some of them through thick lensed 1980s glasses, and stared directly at the intruders. 

“Oh fuck.” Dirk managed to say.

“Get them, Mildred.” A haggard female voice called out, and before Dirk could back out of the room a spry seventy-something cracked a baseball bat over his head and knocked him out. Due to his lack of consciousness, Dirk didn’t hear them dispatch Todd moments later, in the same fashion.

~*~

Farah took advantage of her overly expensive gym membership just about every afternoon, trying to keep in ass-kicking shape. At the moment she was blaring some heavy electronic music in her headphones, sprinting at the highest speed she could handle on the treadmill. She had about 3 minutes left of her peak heartrate speed before she would allow herself to cool down.

“Excuse me!” A blonde white woman in her thirties, defying all logic and reason, addressed Farah from the side of the machine with a strangely demanding expression.

Farah scrambled to pull the red STOP cord to address what surely must be an emergency.

“Yeah?” Farah managed to gasp through wheezing breaths, pulling her earbuds out and jumping off of the treadmill. Sweat poured down her face as her body adjusted to its sudden stop.

“It’s Simone, right? From work?” The woman asked.

“Uh. no?” Farah answered with a quizzical expression. 

“Oh!” As realization dawned that she was addressing the wrong dark skinned black woman, the stranger drew her lips into a tight, thin line. “Well. You look like her.” She said, in a bizarrely combative way, like she was daring Farah to make it a race thing.

“Ok?” Farah answered, musing on the absolute fucking gall it took to get annoyed at someone for not being who you mistakenly thought they were. Her whole exercise was thrown off by this lady. The woman didn’t apologize, and swept off, leaving Farah to contemplate whether it was even worth it to finish her sprint.

“Exc-Excuse me?” 

“Oh for the love of…” Farah turned around to see who was interrupting her again. Incongruously for the gym atmosphere, she saw that she was addressed by a pale white woman with thick dark curled hair and chunky bangs wearing what appeared to be some kind of off-white nightgown. She looked like one of those terrifying china dolls that always turn out to be haunted. “Uh, hello.” Farah said. 

“Hello Farah Black.” The woman spoke in a weird kind of sing-songy voice, like she was reminding herself how to speak with every word, fully completing the whole ‘haunted doll’ vibe.

“Do I know you?” Farah asked.

“Not yet. Dirk needs your help. He and Todd got knocked out by a bunch of old ladies and they could die.” Her head tilted as she finished the sentence with a kind of childlike innocence. 

Farah sighed a long suffering sigh and rubbed her face. 

“You uh, one of Dirk’s friends? From Blackwing?” She asked, kind of gently. 

Mona gasped, surprised that Farah had put that together so fast. Farah, for her part, had noticed between Dirk and Bart that Blackwing projects seemed to share a childlike quality. Like they couldn’t quite believe they were allowed to be out and about unsupervised. A quality that this new girl demonstrated in spades.

“Well, this might as well happen.” Farah shrugged. “Where are they?” 

~*~

Consciousness crept back to Dirk reluctantly. At first he simply remembered his own existence, which was pleasant enough. Then he remembered Todd’s existence, which was, for a moment, elating. Then the pain hit and the rest of the events of that afternoon rushed into his aching skull and he sat up with a gasp.

His head felt as if it were full of some heavy, rolling sludge which made it impossible to keep upright. His wrists, tied tightly at his hips, scratched uncomfortably. A bright, rainbow pattern yarn effectively restrained him at his ankles and wrists, and he was pressed into the wall of a dark, very small enclosed space. Todd slumped, also bound, beside him, still unconscious and leaning heavily into Dirk’s shoulder. There wasn’t much light or space, he and Todd appeared to be stuffed into a very small closet.

Dirk realized, with a cold rush of worry, that he no longer wore his leather jacket. Which meant…

“Mona!” Dirk whispered. “Mona are you here?” 

“huh… what?” Todd mumbled, lifting his head slowly from Dirk’s shoulder. “No, uh, It’s Todd? Todd’s here.”

“No!” Dirk groaned and tried to wiggle into a more comfortable position. His old crossbow injuries in his shoulder and back were acting up, and his more recent thigh injury already stung like hell. “Mona. Are you here? I could use a pair of scissors or something right now.” 

Todd stared down at his tightly restrained ankles as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. 

“God, they even used the scratchy yarn, these ladies are the worst.” He mumbled, trying to somehow contort his wrists out of his bindings. 

Dirk took several quick breaths as he tried to get a better grasp of his surroundings, when, out of the blue, for the first time in a quite a long while, the universe blessed him with one of his overwhelming and undeniable hunches.

“Oh good.” He let out a sigh and settled into the corner of the closet, curling his legs underneath him cozily.

“What’s good? This, uh, still seems pretty bad to me?” Todd asked.

“Nope, everything’s fine, we are exactly where we are supposed to be.” Dirk smiled at Todd, radiating peace. “We’ve just got to wait it out.”

“Seriously? The universe wants us tied up in a closet with rainbow yarn by a bunch of drug dealing grandmas?”

“Well put, Todd. Ganz genau.” 

“What?”

“That’s German for ‘definitely exactly.’”

“You speak German?”

“No.” Dirk said with a smug little smile.

Todd narrowed his eyes at his friend and almost said something, but in the end decided against it.

~*~

After a quick shower and change Farah found herself walking past a few busy storefronts with an odd childlike woman who informed her matter of factly that she could transform into a bicycle if Farah wanted to get there faster. Farah politely declined. Mona explained the situation as they made their way to the knitting store/drug den.

Farah very nearly busted in to the storefront with a flourish, but an older white man, lingering by the doorway, whispered urgently to her and Mona before they entered,

“I wouldn’t go in there right now.”

Mona gasped when she saw him. It was the blue shirted man who Dirk had decided, at random, to follow. He looked wound up, and he kept glancing back and forth between the storefront and his phone.

“That’s him!” Mona hissed.

“That’s who?” Farah asked, hand hovering around the holster at her waist.

“Hold on, are you police?” The man asked, reaching inside his jacket pocket and fumbling to pull out a badge. Farah chose not to mention that she wasn’t actually a police officer she just carried herself like one, and snatched it out of his hand authoritatively. The man was named James Parke, or so his badge said. He was DEA. 

“I’m a private investigator.” She said, coolly snapping his badge shut and handing it back to him. “My friends are in there, and I think they’re in trouble.”

“They call you?”

“They’re just… generally in trouble.”

Parke shook his head and gestured for them to join him out of eyeline of the knitting store’s window.

“Who hired you?” He whispered.

“Um.” Farah and Mona shared a little bewildered eye contact. “Uh, that’s not important right now. All I know are my friends are in there and might be in serious danger.”

“Your friends are DEFINITELY in danger.” Parke said. “They just walked right into one of the largest cocaine dealing rings in the country. I’ve been trying to pin down this warehouse location for the past three years.”

Farah managed to not roll her eyes and groan “TYPICAL” but it was a close call. 

Parke, in a hushed voice, filled them in on the situation. He’d been fairly certain that the dealers operated out of a small bodega across the street, but he noticed as he was scoping the place out that he was being followed.

“I tried to figure out what was going on. These guys were like, really bad at following me, it was incredibly obvious.”

Mona and Farah both nodded in understanding. Parke had followed the conspicuous and suspicious couple into the store and then witnessed (from hiding) what could only be described as a kidnapping. At least three kilos of cocaine had exited the store in large cardboard boxes as he lingered nearby, trying to figure out what to do. It was a miracle, years of work all coming to fruition in a moment. 

“Seriously, what drew your investigation to this shop? We’ve been working on this for so…” Parke just sort of stuttered, too overwhelmed to finish his sentence.

“Our lead detective uses somewhat unorthodox methods, but uh, they’re effective, I’ve got to say.” Farah admitted. She eyed the entry to the knitting store. A young woman with purple hair and two dachsunds walked obliviously out of the storefront, bag full of organic merino yarn. It was getting later in the day and business was slowing. The three of them were looking more conspicuous loitering on the street. “What’s the plan?” 

Parke stared back and forth between the two ladies. 

“Plan? I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing here right now!” 

~*~

“Uh, Dirk?”

Todd’s legs had fallen asleep so hard he almost forgot what it was like to have feeling in them. Any time he attempted to straighten them out and get some blood flowing he just ended up embarrassedly pushing himself more closely into his boss. Dirk, in all honesty, didn’t seem to mind.

“Yes Todd?” Dirk answered, infuriatingly calm. He looked like he’d just spent the afternoon lounging comfortably and reading a magazine. 

“I guess I just wanted to say…” Todd’s throat closed up, like his body was trying to sabotage him. “Sorry about being such a dick.” He croaked.

“In what instance?” Dirk asked.

“When you came out. I know it’s a scary thing to say to somebody, so I should have been more thoughtful. No matter how irrational you were being…”

“Pardon? What’s irrational?” Dirk’s calm seemed to evaporate somewhat as he asked the question.

“No I just mean like, of course I don’t care that you’re gay, I’m not an asshole…”

“Oh I see, you ‘don’t care’ so it was ‘irrational’ for me to hide my sexuality, was it Todd?” Dirk couldn’t do hand quotes because his hands were still tied with rainbow yarn but his voice made their presence felt. “Please, Todd Brotzman, social skills expert, explain to me how I should have come out to you.” 

“No, just like, I mean… of course I’m not homophobic, I was in a post-post-rock band!”

“What does that EVEN MEAN? TODD!?”

“WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT ME? I’M TRYING TO APOLOGIZE!”

“I KNOW! YOU ARE, HOWEVER, DOING IT QUITE BADLY!”

“IT’S NOT LIKE I’M 100% STRAIGHT!”

“WHAT!?!?!?”

The pitch and volume of both men’s voices rose incrementally throughout the conversation, so that by the end of it the two of them were full on shouting at one another in utter confusion.

The door to the closet swung open with a bang and a white-haired lady with a pair of reading glasses on her face and another on her head pointed a 9mm back and forth between the two of them. They shrieked.

“Will you two SHUT UP!?” The woman hissed.

In what they would later describe as a not at all involuntary tactic, both men continued to yell and scrambled as best they could away from the gun. The lady swung her firearm back and forth between the two of them, trying to pin down a target, which gave Farah Black (who had burst into the room like a motherfucking superhero) a chance to tackle her from the side.

“FARAH!” Both Dirk and Todd shouted ecstatically as the two women wrestled on the floor.

Mona appeared in front of them, nodding eagerly and gesturing for them to follow her. 

“Mona! Love! Scissors? Possibly?” Dirk asked, wiggling pathetically to demonstrate his yarn-tied state. 

Mona, much to both Todd and Farah’s surprise, obligingly transformed into a pair of overlarge and heavy scissors. 

“Oh, bless!” Dirk said, twisting his body to try to pick the scissors up and cut off his bindings.

Farah twisted the older woman’s arm behind her until she dropped her gun, and then jammed her knee into her back, restraining her.

“Parke?” She shouted. “We got them! You good?”

The only response was the loud POP POP POP of gunshots in the next room.

“GET DOWN.” Farah shouted, Todd and Dirk complied, with Dirk still struggling to untie himself. 

“Not so good, huh?” Todd whispered after the round of gunshots slowed down. 

“Got it!” Dirk freed his hands which made cutting legs and Todd’s bindings much more simple. Her work done, Mona turned back into a young lady, now sandwiched closely between the two men on the floor. Todd let out a little yelp.

“Todd, Mona. Mona, Todd.” Dirk said by way of introduction.

“Hiya!” Mona said with a wide smile.

Todd sort of whimpered.

“Ok, I’m gonna use this lady…” Farah said, nudging her knee into the older woman’s back, who made an irritated grunting noise from the floor “as a shield, and get us out of here.”

The questionable morality of using a mature woman as a human shield occurred to every member of the team, but none of them were willing to speak up. As a begrudging unit, the four of them stood up in a little huddle behind their captive and shuffled over to the door. Before Farah could shove the lady through it, though, James Parke stumbled through, clutching his side. A deep red stain dripped from his ribs and soaked into the waist of his jeans.

“We… we got ‘em.” He whispered, sinking to the floor.

“Hold on, this guy?” Todd exclaimed, recognizing Parke as the man they had followed.

“Is he a baddie too?” Dirk asked, amazed once again at how thoroughly and often the universe messed with his life.

“No he’s DEA… I’m calling 911!!” Farah said. 

“They’re already… what, did you think I just ran in here without calling backup?” Parke squinted at Farah and her odd cohort in confusion, but was quickly overwhelmed with pain. He flinched. “Who are you guys!?”

Dirk awkwardly broke away from the group and crept towards the man on the floor on his hands and knees. Realizing what was about to happen, Todd almost called him back, but then just cringed and covered his face.

“Hiiiiiiii.” Dirk said, reaching for a small packet of business cards in his back pocket. He gently placed one in the man’s shirt pocket, purposefully avoiding the one which was soiled with a rapidly spreading blood stain. “I’m Dirk Gently, of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Cases solved with arguable efficiency. Tell your friends! When you’re less… yes, less unconscious. Sorry.” 

~*~

Later that evening, after a series of police interviews, the team stepped out of the station and back into freedom, leaving an entire shift of police officers shaking their heads in utter incomprehension. Mona escaped police intervention by peacing out and turning into a roller skate back at the crime scene, so she was already back at the office. Farah, exhausted from fighting and wired from the gunfight, left her dimwitted dude buddies to go sit at home alone and watch baking shows.

This left Dirk and Todd together, walking home on largely deserted sidewalks under dingey yellow streetlights. 

“So.” Dirk said, biting his cheek. 

“Yeah.” Todd replied, in a tone that implied agreement.

“What on LITERAL earth does ‘not 100% straight’ mean?” Dirk finally blurted, acting as though the last several hours of interrogation hadn’t happened and getting right back into their last argument.

“You know, like, Kinsey scale shit.” Todd said, looking sheepish.

“Oh, so like, everyone in the world is a little bit gay? That kind of thing” Dirk asked.

“Or like…” Todd blushed, trying to think of a better way to explain it. “Like, you get kind of drunk with one of your bandmates and like… stuff happens?” 

“Sex stuff?” Dirk asked in a deathly serious whisper.

“Uh, yeah.” 

“Why have we not got kind of drunk together then?” Dirk asked in anguish, before really thinking about it. 

Todd laughed. “I don’t know man, we’re usually like, about to die or something.” 

“Todd, I hate to be annoying…”

Todd found that hard to believe but he let Dirk continue.

“but before I say anything else I’d like to make myself perfectly clear.” He stopped walking and grabbed Todd gently by the shoulders, directing all of his attention to his friend. “I have nothing to do tomorrow. Neither of us are in any immediate or even, dare I say, imminent danger. I would like nothing better in the world than to stop at a corner store, purchase some beverages, and go to your apartment and get ‘kind of drunk’ with you. I’ve wanted to get ‘kind of drunk’ with you for an embarrassingly long time, actually.” 

Todd realized with dismay that his palms were sweating. He wiped them on his jeans before looking back up into Dirk’s large, questioning blue eyes. He let out an awkward laugh.

“Yeah, uh, that sounds good.” He said.

“I mean sex, Todd. And kissing, and all that.”

“Yup, I got that, thanks, uh… thanks.” Todd gathered all the courage he could muster and leaned towards Dirk, rising up on his toes a little bit to make the distance. He took his friend off guard with a small kiss. 

Dirk blushed deep crimson and stared at Todd Brotzman in utter amazement. 

“You, uh should have said something sooner.” Todd muttered.

“I guess I bloody well should have!” Dirk said, blinking. It took a few seconds for the spell to wear off, and for Dirk to start rapidly scanning the street for stores. “Lets find a bodega or something!!” He announced with glee. 

Todd just laughed, and followed his friend into the dimly lit, welcoming evening.


End file.
